Picture this: it’s February 1968. You’re probably high. Mick as Alex; The Stones as his droogs; music by The Beatles; screenplay by Terry Southern… this movie would’ve been either the greatest thing ever, or totally unwatchable. Without a firm hand to guide him (Stanley Kubrick) Terry Southern tended to write stuff like The Magic Christian, films much less fun than the parties surrounding them. The British Board of Censors rejected Southern’s script, probably fearing that 2/3rds of Britain’s arable land would be turned into cannabis.

It’s telling that the first name on this petition — its “John Hancock” as it were — is someone called “The Flasher.” Also, someone has drawn a camel on it.

The Sixties were a special time, folks.

Before I go, I want to pass along a thought I have occasionally. I don’t think the Beatles and Stones were friends. I think they were frenemies — at least Mick and Keith were to the Beatles. (Poor Brian Jones, he was something else entirely, and Charlie — can you imagine Charlie being uncool about anything? Charlie Watts is the uncle I’d like to call if I ever got picked up by the cops.)

“Well, hell, if ‘The Flasher’ wants us to do it, we’re going to do it.”

In case you can’t read it: ‘We, the undersigned, do hereby protest with extreme vehemence as well as shattered illusions (in you) the preference of David Hemmings above Mick Jagger in the role of Alex in The Clockwork Orange’.

My favorite signature is “Hear! Hear! Strawberry ‘Bob.'” The quotation marks around “Bob” really sell it.
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Just finished reading Gary Lachman’s book Turn Off Your Mind: The Mystic Sixties and the Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius, which mentions this petition and also touches on the Beatles’ involvements with the mystic/occult. When I can dig myself out some time (don’t hold your breath) I’ll post a review of it.

@Nancy, I am sure I will have a LOT to say about that topic when you do your review. The Beatles, btw, were not involved in a lot of the creepier aspects of the mystic 60s, unlike say for example the Stones. The Beatles were approached by (among many other groups, I’m sure) people from the Process Church of the Final Judgment, but they were rebuffed.

This is one of the areas in which Brian’s death was most sorely felt. Magic Alex, the whole passel of astrologers and mystics that fastened themselves upon Apple, even Yoko to a certain extent — these are the types of people that Brian kept away. And for every person whom a Beatle wanted to meet (a Yoko) there were many more who took advantage. ~~Raspberry “Mike”